Lightning

[BGL990]

We had a good lightning storm a couple weeks back. I set up my camera on a tripod, set it to a long exposure (30 seconds), and kept snapping pictures hoping to get lucky. Out of about 200 shots, I got lucky on one. Turned out pretty neat.

 

[BIGUN]

Nice shot. Used a digital camera I assume? It would be kind of expensive taking 200 chance shots with film. That’s one of the things I like most about digital cameras is the freedom to click away without being concerned with the cost.

 

[johnday]

Thats a great pic. BTW, pros go thru many shots to get the just right one also. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[daedong]

Great shot, hard to catch.

 

[hillslider]

I have always wanted to try that....but I hate lightning! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I would be the one that makes it in the paper....Man hit by lightning while trying to photogaraph it. The only picture he got was of him lying on the ground smoldering. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[JayC]

We had an awesome storm a few weeks back. The lightning was just beautiful. Whenever a storm comes, I love to watch the lightning. It is a real beautiful sight. The thunder, on the other hand, is another story. I don't mind the rolling thunder, but the claps I don't like - especially at night when I wanna sleep. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[EddieWalker]

Amazing shot. I've never seen lightning go sideways like that. How did it ground itself out? I've always been told that lightning actually starts at the ground and goes up, but I don't know if that true, and after seeing your picture, I really doubt it now.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[BGL990]

It doesn't have to "ground out" necessarily. Lightning is just a big spark - a transfer of electrical charge from one place to another. The traditional lightning bolt one thinks of travels between the ground and cloud formations, but there is no law that says different areas in the atmosphere can't have radically different charges.

As for lightning going up from the ground, I believe that is true, at least in the sense of electron movement. I seem to remember that typically the ground is more negatively charged than the atmosphere and so when a lightning stroke happens to equalize that charge, free electrons move upward.

This picture was actually just the tail end of a huge discharge that started as a couple of very intense arcs that split and fanned out across what must have been tens of miles across the sky. This type and ground striking lightning were going strong for a couple of hours. I missed what would have been some very impressive pictures. Of course every time I moved to a different window, the lightning started up where I had just been /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[BB_TX]

During times when there is turbulence in the atmosphere, different clouds may become positively charged or negatively charged. When a cloud is positively charged, the earth below it will become negatively charged. And when a cloud is negatively charged, the earth below it will become positively charged. When the difference in potential (i.e. difference in voltage) of the cloud and the ground becomes great enough, an arc will form between the two and allow the electricity to travel from one to the other disipating that potential. Or if a negative cloud is close enough to a positive cloud, the arc will jump from one cloud to the other and not go to the ground. In effect, it is still "grounding" the arc by traveling to the negatively charged area.
At least that's the way I remember it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[rcmike]

Here is a picture I got last year. lightning